The Moon – how many songs have been written about her, how much poetry? The Moon holds a massive place in our consciousness and symbolically holds a major seat in the hierarchy of the planets in astrology. We perceive the Moon as the second largest object in the sky. Stephen Arroyo states in his excellent Astrology Karma & Transformation that

Although the scientific world-view describes the Sun as immensely larger than the Moon, … the relative diameters and distances of the Sun and Moon are such that, when seen from the earth, both discs subtend almost exactly the same visual angle (0.5) and appear to be the same size.

Due to this, many cultures have considered the Moon a major deity of the sky, equal to the Sun.

In a personal natal chart the Moon indicates

The reigning need of the personality

The mother figure and other women

Feelings and receptivity

Nurturing qualities

The health of the stomach and breasts

Memory, the past, subconscious

Mass consciousness, the public

Matter, form

How will we define the Moon as used in astrology for business? Remember, there are three different options in the business use of astrology.

The first is reading a person’s standard natal chart from the point of view of business. What does your chart say about you as a business person? What are your strengths and weaknesses as applied to your professional life?

The second is reading the chart of a business itself. It is fairly easy to find the date of incorporation of publicly held businesses, and many small business owners can say the date they first opened their doors or made their first sale.

The third option is to view the vocations that have been found to be good expressions of certain planetary energies.

The Moon in a Businessperson’s Chart

The Moon Goddess - Chandra Devi (Source: Wikipedia)

What does the Moon convey in the chart of a businessperson? The Moon, as the significator of the reigning need of the personality and the builder of form, shows what you must do in order to be emotionally fulfilled. The Moon takes the Sun energy and gives it form. You could say the Sun shows the essential energy and the Moon shows how that energy takes form in the world. So a person with a Leo Moon needs a leadership position in order to express their Sun energy. A person with a Libra Moon needs beauty and peace in the working environment.

The Moon also shows how the businessperson cares for employees and others. According to the sign of the Moon, the person may tend to be more or less compassionate, nurturing, and inclusive of support staff in the day to day environment and decision-making.

The Moon in the Chart of a Business

Like the Sun, when we look at the Moon in the chart of a business, we take the essential meanings of the Moon in a personal chart and combine them with the meanings of the Moon in a mundane chart. A business is an entity in that it has a birth, a life cycle, and an end, and it has meaning and purpose like any other being. It is like a child of a person’s imagination and desire. But it’s also impersonal, in that it doesn’t carry its own conscious evolvement even though it passes through phases and cycles like everything else on earth. In this way it is more like a mundane chart and the meanings from that branch of astrology apply.

In a business chart, the Moon describes the public’s perception of the business, the employees, and women in the business in general. (However, if a woman is the owner and/or leader of the business, she is described by the Sun.) The Moon also describes customers and public relations.

Also depending on the sign, it describes the business form, as well as whether the business is bricks and mortar, communications based, or virtual.

Vocations

Many thanks for the following vocational information to Noel Tyl. As my first astrology teacher in the 1970s, his work continues to influence my thinking to this day. He has recently published Vocations, the New Midheaven Extension Process, which outlines the various vocations that are connected with each of the planets.

Some vocations associated with the Moon include nursing, coaching, consulting, working with the public, real estate, cooking, and restaurants. Can you form the link between these and the other descriptions? The essential energy of the Moon takes slightly different but related forms in the different expressions.

How’s your mental telepathy? I read back on predictions by other astrologers pre-1998 for the period when Neptune would be passing through Aquarius. There were some who predicted that mind-to-mind telepathy would be a feature of this time; that man would develop the ability to communicate over vast distances through the mind alone. This was virtually accomplished through the internet and the various applications like Facebook, blogging, flickr, twittering, and many others . Second Life and similar environments have created spaces where we can meet with people we know from across the globe or meet and get to know others, attend events together, live and play in an electronic community that can become as real as your first life, depending on your definition of reality. In Aquarius, reality is an experience in the mind.

I’m not making a judgment here although I do tend to get excited by new ideas and directions. I’m encouraging all of us as businesspeople to recognize what is happening. Certainly there are many activities that are not conducted in this way, but the internet has captured the time and minds of many millions of people. If we are competing with the internet while Neptune is in Aquarius, we need to recognize it and be sure we are offering services and products that cannot be had for free in the internet medium. People used to use accountants to do their taxes; now they can be done for free on line. People used to use travel agents; now free on line. People used to use stockbrokers; free or almost free on line.

And the knowledge that is free and available on line is astounding. Need medical advice? Go online. Need lawn care advice? No longer do you run down to the hardware store. Want to try that new restaurant? Check it out online, where you trust the opinions of others because there are so many contributors that there is a leveling out, a consensus that can be achieved.

Neptune in Aquarius isn’t just about the internet. The urge is to blend by forming groups and communities. Of course there are many communities online from Geekdads to , yes, lawncare tips. But the urge is happening outside of the virtual world too. What do your employees and customers want under this influence?

People want to contribute to the whole

People want to form groups of like-minds

People want to connect to others

People want their ideas acknowledged

So what are we saying here? Recognize the impact of Neptune in Aquarius – people want to meet based on shared interests and are willing to meet purely through the realm of the mind. If your business is bricks and mortar, how can you use this trend? More on this in the coming posts, including another Neptune in Aquarius business concept – Free.

As I’m writing, my cat jumps up on my desk. I stop to pet her silky fur and she perches next to me. She loves paperwork and will always join me at my desk when I’m working. She likes to knock over cups full of pens and snuggle into the paper tray of my printer. Can I duplicate this online? No, and yet I’m not likely to try to make a business out of it, either.

When I announced that I was going to write about the intersection of astrology and business, my sister asked, “Is this another form of discrimination?”

I know where she’s coming from. As an attorney and judge, the last thing she wants is another way businesspeople can discriminate against one group or another. As in, “Oh, I don’t hire Tauruses. They’re always lazy.”

I agree that anytime you say one group of people is always a certain way, it is unfair. But I started thinking about this word discrimination, and noticed it has two distinct meanings. The first meaning given in the American Heritage Dictionary is “The ability or power to see or make fine distinctions; discernment.” The next is “An act based on prejudice.”

I know business people who always review a potential hire through the lens of the candidate’s astrology chart. I think this is wise only when the person has a true, in-depth knowledge of astrology, or consults an astute astrologer. Astrology is a complex art and I do not recommend judging a candidate on the basis of their sun sign.

How can astrology help with the hiring process? It depends on the situation. Say you’re about to launch a business. A good astrological reading can help you define your own strengths and weaknesses, your blind spots, where you tend to contract in fear and where you can tend to be too extravagant. With this knowledge you can look for a partner or a key manager who will balance or round out your tendencies. Your clarity about your own strengths and weaknesses can enable you to understand what you require in the right candidate. Astrology doesn’t have to enter into the conversation; it has helped you identify exactly what qualities you are looking for.

This also applies to a consultant you may use, or a coach. The self-knowledge you gain from an astrological reading of your natal chart allows you to ask pointed questions as you interview. Consultants, employees, partners, directors: these are long-term relationships, hopefully, and armed with this astrological knowledge you have a good chance of choosing the right person.

Another aspect of this is when you launch your business. The business itself has a natal chart based on its time and date of incorporation, or the day you open your doors. The chart of the business will reveal strengths and weaknesses. If you compare your own chart to the chart of the business, you will gather additional information. Perhaps there are weak spots that can be filled in by someone else. We’re not asking what sign are they, but do they have the qualities that will round out and balance what is missing.

Let’s take an example. Say you are an enthusiastic person with a lot of great ideas. Consulting your astrologer you recognize that you love initiating projects but when the time comes to run them day to day you get bored and lose energy. You see that this has been a pattern that has repeated itself in many different aspects of your life. So you decide you need a partner who is practical, good at systems, who actually likes sitting at a desk and getting paperwork done. This does not mean you will only interview Virgos, or people with a lot of earth in their chart. It means you know what you need to balance your own talents and can structure the interview to cover those specific items.

So the discrimination we’re talking about when using astrology as a hiring tool is the discernment to understand yourself and your business very well. No one has all of the traits it takes to run a business successfully. Astrology can help you put together the right team so that you’ve got the best shot at success.

About Ellen Longo

Ellen Longo

Welcome, everyone: old friends, clients, new friends, those of you I’ve met, those I’ll meet through these pages. Welcome to a long-term, mutually beneficial conversation about the wisdom of astrology as it pertains to the success and profitability of your business.

Whether you are in the start-up phase, are currently running a successful business, or planning a change, alignment with the natural cycles of the planets can inform your path.--> More

Read about Ellen’s Excellent Adventure

This is the story of how I arrived at the point of writing a blog about the intersection of business and astrology.